Weekly Weather: that spring feeling in the dead of winter

Welcome to your Monday morning weather update, in which I’ll attempt to sum up the immediate past, present and future of weather on the bayou. This week will start warm before a brief cooldown. The second half of the week, however, will feel a lot more like spring than the dead of winter.

PAST

The big weather of 2012, so far, occurred a week ago when a storm system ripped through Houston and produced six tornadoes (see report). All of the tornadoes were the weakest kind, EF-0, except for an EF-1 tornado that touched down near the intersection of Bissonnet Street and Gains Road in Mission Bend, Fort County. Several homes were damaged by the estimated winds of 95 mph.

The strongest elements of the storm — wind, hail, tornadoes and flooding — were largely clustered in the southwestern part of the Houston area. Here’s an overview of the severe weather via the National Weather Service’s new graphical storm reporting tool.

National Weather Service storm report. Click to enlarge. (NWS)

The storm system also brought a good amount of rain with several inches of water across wide swaths of the metro region south of downtown Houston. Outlying counties also fared quite well. Here’s the storm’s rain totals as estimated by the Advanced Hydrological Prediction Service:

Rainfall estimates for the last seven days. (National Weather Service)

As a result of the rain all of Harris County, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, has now emerged from the worst category of drought — “exceptional” — for the first time since March 29, 2011. That means at least part of Harris County has been in a 50 to 100-year drought for more than nine months.

That’s incredible.

Anyway, let’s do the numbers for last week.

Date

High T

Low T

Average

Departure

Rainfall

Monday

70

61

66

+13

1.01

Tuesday

61

46

54

+1

0.01

Wednesday

71

42

57

+4

0.00

Thursday

60

35

48

-5

0.00

Friday

55

30

43

-10

0.00

Saturday

64

31

48

-5

0.00

Sunday

70

41

56

+3

0.00

Average

64.4

40.9

53.1

+0.1

1.02

PRESENT

This week’s weather will start out warm as moist air from the Gulf of Mexico moves onshore. Temperatures today and Tuesday should rise into the mid-70s, a good 12 to 15 degrees above normal for mid-January.

The atmosphere looks capped today, so widespread rain showers are unlikely, say forecasters with the Houston/Galveston office of the National Weather Service. However that could change later tonight and into Tuesday, when there’s a 30 percent chance of rain.

Although accumulations look to be light at this time, forecasters cannot rule out the chance of isolated thunderstorms.

Skies should abruptly clear Tuesday night with the arrival of a cold front, driving overnight lows Tuesday and Wednesday night into the low- to mid-40s.

Wednesday night's lows should be the lowest temperatures for awhile. (National Weather Service)

The front’s effect should be short-lived however, with the return of the onshore flow by Thursday.

At this point the week looks warm, with highs in the mid-70s, under partly cloudy to mostly cloudy skies.

FUTURE

During the last two winters the city of Houston has experienced very cold periods of weather with temperatures below 25 degrees for consecutive nights. This year the city has yet to record a hard freeze, defined by the National Weather Service as a low temperature of 28 degrees. Houston came close twice in December, reaching 29 degrees.

So is Houston out of the woods, in terms of Arctic blasts?

Although the next 10 days look pretty mild, we have to get past February before we can stop worrying about such chills. Last year it was as cold as 24 degrees as late as Feb. 11, and Houston has had low temperatures of 6 degrees in mid-February.

With that being said, January does look fairly warm until the end of the month. At that point there are hints of a change to a colder pattern at that time, but we will just have to wait and see.

SUMMARY

This week’s scale goes from 0 to 4, the number of turnovers given up by the Texans on Sunday, costing them a chance to defeat the Baltimore Ravens. But oh that defense, what an amazing game.

My number: 3.8.

FINE PRINT

As always, thank you to the fine professionals at the National Weather Service for the information and data that make this weekly blog entry possible. Also, bear in mind there’s always uncertainty in weather forecasting, particularly the timing and intensity of precipitation.

34 Responses

I keep thinking about the cold snap during the first two weeks of February last year, 2011. It’s nice to be ahead on the rain and to have the beautiful weather like now. We should get outside and enjoy it while it lasts.

By the way, we had just over 2.2 inches of rain down here 3 miles east of Blessing. That was an average of four gauges. It looks like the estimates from the radar are fairly accurate, particularly considering the distance from the radar sites.

I’d be very happy (and so would my garden) if we didn’t have a repeat of last year. Even my lantana are still blooming and I’ve only had minimal freeze damage. So I’d love it if spring would show up early. Can we bribe the groundhog?

Bush Airport has not had a hard freeze this year, and this is caused by urban growth. Several weather stations around Bush had 3-4 hard freezes this year. I have had 3 freezes below 28F in Spring, TX. Hooks airport has also seen 3 hard freezes so far this winter. A couple of home weather stations (reliable Davis Vantage Pros), have had hard freezes just north of the airport.

So far this month:
IAH average low 44.5, Hooks 41.3! That is 3.4F difference. Back in the the late 1990s the difference between these two thermometers was only about 1F! Clearly, IAH is not the old therm it used to be, and has warmed up significantly over the last 20 years. Time to move it away from the runways, to a cooler spot.

On the astronomical front Saturday night the sky was about good as it ever gets here in Houston for viewing the stars. A very rare occurrence in our normally humidity muddled and light polluted Houston area skies.

My wife reported pea-sized hail at home last Monday morning (west part of Memorial area). Maybe a minute of it. No damage from it, as far as she could see, and I didn’t notice any in the neighborhood that evening.

The hubby and I are headed to Maui for two weeks in February. Bragging just a little, :), but hey, it’s for enduring each other for 15 years. lol. Glad to hear we will be getting away from *cold* weather.

Congratulations on your ten and fifteen years . My wife and I beat you both though. It will be 19 for us in May. Don’t feel bad though you beat us on the vacation spot. I think Nacogdoches is about as far as we will go. Are those flights non-stop ?

Welcome To Your Monday Morning Update:…The latest gaff by the Fear Mongers is a dooosy….Temps guessed to be 40 degrees Sunday morning were recorded at 34 degrees. Reason?……”There must have been a pocket of cold air at the airport”……..I can’t make this stuff up!!!!

people are never satisfied.in a coulple of months they will be crying about it being too hot and humid,wishing for a cold front and when it cools down to much for them in a few months they start crying again for it to get warm.

I think we should all keep saving water at this point because all of the lakes are real, real low. Conroe is down 7 feet. Summerville is down 10 feet. They are so low you can’t even launch a boat at this point. I’m thinking about selling mine.

I honestly don’t understand why many people despise the cold weather, rather hoping it remains warm throughout the remainder of winter, as if Houston doesn’t experience enough warm/hot days in the course of a year. This is probably the only time of the year we can actually go outside and dawn our special jackets/sweaters, hoping we’ll get some snow and/or sleet our way (I don’t want to sound too optimistic either) and simply basking at what Mother Nature is giving us before summer approaches and we begin baking outside in the heat again.

If you really love hot winters that much, well, I tell them there’s always Florida.

when it’s 100 degrees, my walk from the parking lot to the store is relaxed; however, when it’s 30 degrees, you walk is quick and too the point. I can deal with the heat, but not the cold. The heat is uncomfortable, the cold is miserable.

I have friends in arkansas litle rock is where i have been since dec 1. They have been really warm this winter. Although it did snow there in late december two inches. The lowest temp there has been 22 at the airport. Its just really strange how the whole country is so mild.